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I'll be very curious to see if this dust-up affects Hillary's poll numbers—and my hunch is that it won't. It's pretty minor, so perhaps not much of a test, but my bet is that she'll maintain her huge edge among women voters. In the personal realm, we're often hard on each other: Studies like the one you mention, Meghan, reflect women's judgment of each other as well as men's judgment of them. But of Hillary, maybe many of us are becoming more forgiving. We know she has a lot of role expectations to straddle.
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Ruth Marcus has a smart piece in today’s Washington Post about Hillary’s decision to play the gender card. I think she is spot-on. Hillary is so far above this sort of gender-grousing, it actually diminishes her to retreat to it. Barack Obama called her on it this morning, saying that “it doesn't make sense for her, after having run that way for eight months, the first time that people start challenging her point of view, that suddenly she backs off and says, "Don't pick on me."
In one sense it’s not fair. For most Americans, Hillary’s gender will be the main lens through which she is judged. Everyone is “reading her” as you say, Meghan, as a woman. And yet each time she reads herself that way—by referring to herself as a “girl” or unleashing a little cleavage—we all go bananas. I think Marcus is right to suggest that Hillary is at her post-feminist best when she uses her girl power to show strength, but lets down the team when she reaches for it as a victim. Still, it’s a double standard wrapped up in a double standard. A double standard squared?